When Dave Minnett was going to university in his home town of Hamilton, Ontario, he was taking engineering and commerce.
A summer job working for Molson Breweries while going to school set him on a path of business and marketing in the hospitality industry, becoming President of a number of nationally-known restaurant chains, right up until today as Owner, President and CEO of Edo Japan.
“I was ambitious and always wanted to grow and continue to grow myself,” he said.
Minnett was born and raised in Hamilton. He went to McMaster University for a Bachelor of Engineering & Management then did a Master of Business Administration at the local post-secondary institution.
“Why McMaster? In all transparency, my parents were hard working, humble people and made enough money that I couldn’t get a loan or a grant of any significance but I had to put myself through university and all that. So I kind of stayed close to home and focused on the academic side and that’s about all I could afford,” he said. “It was a great program.
“It’s interesting. Why engineering and management and commerce? Because I really didn’t know (what he wanted to do). I was good at analytics and math and I always had sort of a desire to think about being a business person of some sort of magnitude but I didn’t really have a good idea. So I just wanted to kind of keep as many doors open from an education standpoint. And I thought that was a noble way to do it.
“In between my first and second year of university, I got hired by Molson Breweries as a summer promotional rep. Driving a van, being part of their sales and marketing efforts in the Niagara Peninsula. I ended up pretty much four summers with them as I was going through school. It was great exposure to the company. As I got into university and I was doing well on the engineering side, the business side had more of a calling for me. I think the combination of those two things I just kind of started thinking more about business and the specifics of marketing and sales.”
When he graduated, he started as a sales rep at Molson as he wanted to pursue the business and marketing pathway in his career.
He spent his first 11 years of his career there becoming Vice President of Marketing for Molson Coors Canada. From there, he became Vice President Brand and Marketing Communications for Rogers Communications, followed by a position as Vice President/Business Director – Snackfood Division for Mars.
Minnett then joined Cara Operations initially as President of Kelsey’s Restaurants followed by President of Swiss Chalet and Harvey’s Restaurants.
Prior to joining Edo, he was President of Amica Mature Lifestyles, which worked with luxury senior residences.
Minnett joined Edo in May 2016.
“Food and food and beverage is a daily choice by everybody. It’s meaningful to most people in terms of the decision they make every day whether they cook for themselves, prepare something themselves, or go out and purchase something in any form,” he said.
“I just had a personal affiliation for it. In fact, if you look through everything on my LinkedIn maybe it’s the marketer in me going way back to the beginning with Molson. I’ve always had to have a strong personal attachment to the product or service the company offers. That’s just been me. I need to have a passion, I need to have a belief in it.
“I think it ends up showing up in passion. You get excited more easily because you’re already a believer and it’s always been a staple for me in every choice I’ve made in my career, even in different industries.”
Minnett said his leadership style has evolved over the years.
“You grow with every move you make in every year. I’ve always been a self learner in every case. I’ve been in five different industries. The very first thing I always do is I sort of dive into the business without pre-conceived notions because that’s always a danger,” he said.
“You bring other experiences or old roles with you but I try to park them for three months and I try to keep an open mind. I think you always have one great opportunity to get an objective assessment and have people tell you what they think who are closer to the business or have been in it for some time. So that’s always worked well for me.
“But if you ask me over the years kind of where I am now, I think first and foremost is I just try to stay curious. Keep asking yourself what if, why does that work and the whole notion of continuous improvement. It’s something I embrace. I think as a leader and someone who is trying to help a business continue to grow or rejuvenate itself or whatever the task at hand is, continuous improvement is something I kind of model my own thinking against.
“Also, have some courage. Give yourself and others around you some permission to fail. You’re going to make a few mistakes but hopefully you have more hits than you do strike outs. But you need to have some courage. And other than the passion thing of having that, it’s infectious if it’s genuine. If you believe and care about it, others do, but more importantly act always with integrity and transparency. If you ask anyone that’s worked alongside me or with me throughout all those stops, I think they would say that. It’s just important in building trust and respect and ultimately alignment with people around you.”
The job of a leader, and something Minnett has always tried to do, is bring forward a compelling and believable vision for growth and put it in place. And create a pathway forward that people can rally around.
“That’s what I’ve always tried to do and I think I’ve always tried to have kind of a three-year pathway of what we’re working towards and then empower and engage those around you to start living and breathing it as their own and work alongside them to develop the strategies and the tactics to achieve it,” he said.
“You can have a great strategy but my goodness if it’s poor execution you know what the results are going to be. But if you have a decent strategy and you do a great job on execution, you tend to be further ahead. That’s the responsibility to ensure the necessary resources are in place for people to successfully do well and execute.”
Minnett’s life partner is Wendy Derzai, who is VP at Taco Time Canada and Extreme Pita at the MTY Food Group.
“She’s my better half. We’re in the same industry which is interesting. She joined Taco Time after I came here to Edo. There’s lots to love about that. We can chat about business. We have an understanding about what we do each and every day,” he said.
“I love golf. I play golf. I’m trying to play a little bit more of it. I’m not that great but we both enjoy golf, we both enjoy fitness, taking care of ourselves and obviously enjoying friends and family as well. I’m also a huge sports fan . . . We love to travel as well and see different parts of the world if we get the opportunity.”
